There is a wide variety of forms I use for my paintings and drawings: orbs, tubes, eyes, antennae, triangles and any combination of organic and inorganic shape. One motif that arises often is the hole. These holes can be either clustered or singular. They are neither a perfectly designed orifice nor a diseased crater but somewhere in between. I like to think of these apertures as being like when an artist makes a collage and carefully carves away at a shape in the center of a picture. There is an elegance about such holes but also a disruption.

The three images I am presenting here represent studies from my sketchbook where I am focused on the motif of the hole. My relationship to the absence in these drawings is not like the absence of longing for someone or being deprived but more like a shocking, uncanny absence that one experiences when they see a faceless person in a dream. These drawings are wordless ways of expressing the unsettling sense of something missing.

All three works are: “Untitled,” black pencil on paper, approx. 3″x5″ 2016.

‘It’s a daily struggle, synchronizing the elements of our environment with those within our personalities. This gets only harder when we realize that some parts are always absent, de facto and/or due to misconception. So we simply stroll, looking up and down, trying to rationalize the situation; or simply trying to make excuses for ourselves.’

‘Machine Made God’ explores the dot and the line, the blank and void, the noise and silence of creation.

Taped at CLARA, Clara is a recording facility for electro-acoustic and experimental music. The studio is situated in an old nuclear shelter in the city of Arnhem, east Holland, near the German border. There is a soundproof space, plus a large hall. In combination, the two provide a unique sound.

‘Archive of the void (in Dutch: ‘Archief van de leegte’) is an ongoing stereo-photo project started in the early 90s. In these stereo-negatives of landscapes Martin van den Oever studies the differences of perception between space, depth and void.’

For this issue, the contributors where invited to respond to questions related to a quote of a letter by Antonin Artaud:

“I am adding another language to the spoken language, and I am trying to restore to the language of speech its old magic, its essential spellbinding power, for its mysterious possibilities have been forgotten.”

The questions:

– Have “the mysterious possibilities of language” – of speech or otherwise – indeed been forgotten? If so, what is the quality of this loss? How does this loss sound?
– Is the magic of language still present? In what way\form? Can it be transmitted? How is it transmitted?
– Can a new language be created? Can a sacred language be created?

x x x x

Besides text and visual work, contributors can respond to these questions with a soundpoem.

All soundpoems will be uploaded on Bandcamp during february – april 2016, with a 4 day pause in between them – a physical release will follow.

The soundpoem „Lait Noir Du Matin“ is based on fragments of the poem “Todesfuge” by Paul Celan. It ends with “der Tod ist ein Meister aus Deutschland”. This is my statement for the guiltyness of my country for all those who lost their lives because of german weapons or the death-industry during Nazi-Germany.

Special thanks to Helmut & Max for their fantastic and inspiring work!

The vivacity of this entanglement,
has been embraced
with heart breath
remembrance
of the one we took together when we first met.
Since then covered in feverish letters,
handed over by glove covered hands,
touched with voices of enchantment
dreams for the infantile world.
A joyful mind voyage
in a time maze I would have sauntered in infinity.
Courteously begging for transcendence
From restless to courage
Courier, carry my wait
Fasten my feeble thought
yard the looming apostate
and give me back my self
I am a thrall in this cell

“composed and recorded at Quiet Cue, Berlin, Jan. 2016
edited room recordings of feedback modulations, played in correlation with Max Kuiper’s samples which triggered the feedback channels inside the mixing desk.
recorded with stereo microphone and asymmetrical speaker array.

Paradoxically, here, the ‘Language’ theme is not represented by any speech / vocal material (although I am frequently working with experimental audio processing of human speech.)

The transference is made to the aspect of feedback, being both a reaction/response to the other, and at the same time an autopoietic rendering within itself.”

Additional material, voice and treatment by Thorsten Soltau.
Recorded from February—March 2016 at Lichter Raum, Wilhelmshaven.

„O And I“

Slow waves of sounds are layered. Detuned timbres of the same loop. Different fluttering volume levels are creating a sheerness of human voices intoning the vowels „o“ and „i“.

„Orb Of Senses“

A mixture of different selections of the provided source material. Binaural filtering and frequency panning applied to various instances. Concrete sounds like a sewing machine (manipulated to resemble a shutter frame running film projector) webbed in. Two spoken texts were set aside to each other. Both spoken from memory as a part of an stream of consciousness experiment. Content of texts inspired by Antonin Artaud; both texts were treated to become distorted and inapprehensible creating a new language.

“Significant moments are the moments we remember most easily. These moments are the moments when we were/are most present, most awake. For me, these moments are mostly visual, not remembered in words, but as images. For me, sounds create background to allow the free association of images to occur without words. If there is a sacred language that exists, it is one without words.”

Nuits et Noirs is a free PDF only magazine with international contributors. Visual\writing\sound.

To view the PDF’s – download it first ; and enlarge it on pc\mac (the PDF’s are not meant for printing).

For this issue, the contributors were asked to respond on this quote of Antonin Artaud:

“I am adding another language to the spoken language,
and I am trying to restore to the language of speech its old magic,
its essential spellbinding power,
for its mysterious possibilities have been forgotten.”

15.
Flüchtig hingemachte Männer
‘Solioquy-Prelude’
“The poem is the prelude of “Solioquy I-XII”, consisting of 13 paragraphs, which have to stay concealed for the time being.”www.flickr.com/photos/aegea/

Statement:
The mysterious possibilities of an image, when the process escapes our control and disappears from the photographic surface, creating a magical and uncontrolled result. The vanished image is shaped by alchemy, when an unexpected chemical reaction breaks the gelatine surface and erases the content of the photography. The persona hidden inside the photography has vanished and become an abstraction, a fragment of memory.

The magical composition was created by randomness and error process, as if the image decided to become autonomous.

The loss of the figure, the sacred image, becomes a beautiful tale of the absence creating a new language, lost inside interstellar abstraction. The dust of a memory, the physical absence of the being, the degradation of physical surface becoming pure texture, pure uncontrolled poetry. The chemical failure turned figuration into abstraction, and created a complex beauty that would have never been possible in an intentional process. The failure becomes the main figure of the process, creating an enigmatic and fragile surface made out of broken fragments.

The images were realised with handmade development process from analog black and white material with slide processing.

Who wants to delve into the theme of this issue?
This quote from a letter of Antonin Artaud i found by coincidence during the making of a series of soundpoems titled ‘If one speaks the sacred language’ and i thought the sentence by Artaud was very suiting:
“I am adding another language to the spoken language, and I am trying to restore to the language of speech its old magic, its essential spellbinding power, for its mysterious possibilities have been forgotten.”

X X X X

If one wants to contribute, the questions to be answered are:
– Have “the mysterious possibilities of language” – of speech or otherwise – indeed been forgotten? If so, what is the quality of this loss? How does this loss sound?
– Is the magic of language still present? In what way\from? Can it be transmitted? How is it transmitted?
– Can a new language be created? Can a sacred language be created?

One can answer these question with:
– A visual work made exclusively for this project ;
– And\or a text – of any type;
– And\or a soundpoem, constructed from the raw soundmaterial of this series of soundpoems.

So, it is possible to contributed with a maximum of 3 works, with the sole condition that different art forms are practised.
The 2 or 3 works may form a unity or may be independent works.

X X X X

With regard to the soundpoem:
– If you want to participate, i can send you a collection of soundmaterial, please message me;
– It is free to combine it with your own material;
– i will upload your soundpoem on the Bandcamppage of this project;
– There could be a physical release too.

The magazine is designed for viewing as a PDF magazine on the computerscreen.
( not designed for printing )
For viewing the magazine, first download the PDF’s,
Then enlarge each PDF to a size that fits the screen.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Curated by R\A\W F\O\R\M\S, Nuits et Noirs is a free magazine that is composed of contributions by contacts on social media as Facebook ; Tumblr ; Flickr.

All works are the property of the creators.
No use of any material is allowed.

*”We are going to the moon, that is not very far. Man has so much farther
to go within himself”.*
*-Anais Nin*

The moon means something to everyone; each human has an idea of it, and the
lore attached to this close astral body connects us to each other and to
our own subconscious. *Mooning,Scratch* is a project to memorize and
reflect on the moons of the solar system and the stories attached to to
their names. For two years, I worked on these scratchboard drawings of the
named moons in our neighborhood. The drawings are icons of the learning I
have done. The larger project is the remembering of knowledge I found
while researching the images and myths associated with the moons. In this
light, *Mooning* casts a light on the duality of knowing/unknowing, and the
space in-between myth and reality.

21.
GRIMM

Title: “Nevermore”

Material: Skulls & Bones (collected in the late Nineties on several Cyclades)

HALCYON
There is a space only for myself in the deepest part of my mind where my hidden memories and sensitive emotions are located.
It is a secret place that will not be open to everyone. The goal of my photography is to reveal it to the audience.
The name Halcyon is inspired by the song of a Japan screamo band Heaven in Her Arms. It is also the way that I knew this name.
Halcyon means peaceful and happy.
But there is a totally different scene in my mind.
It evokes me the memory of my trip to Fuzhou when I experienced the strongest storm of the year.
All I felt were whirring of the wind, shrill sound of the ocean wave and a wrathful force from the darkness of the farthest part of the ocean.
Silent, desolated, dark and chaotic are all characteristics of Halcyon.
I represent the darkness that has been following me as my shadow for years.
In this series, I applied different symbolic imageries in the creation to express what is substantial in my unconscious mind.

46.
Mice Poptsis
“I work with experimental photography since 1975 and explore the nature of photography.
The visible, the pictorial and the substantial as pure form.
Kazimir Malevich: ” black square on a white background ” inspired me.
I am exploring the non material (intangible) form as an analogy to the idea of spacelessness”

47.
Ivana Kalezic: “Noise”

(mixed media,tempera,comb drawing,ink and graphite on paper)

48.
João Ricardo – From a series of three photo’s titled “morrinhento…” .

Thorsten Soltau works within the field of rhythm and concrete sampling.
His first works were inspired by cut-up techniques and concrete music centered around personal concepts.
In 2013 Soltau mixed his first album related to the early days of commercial and underground rave music.
2014 he finished working on a series of albums compiling minimal music collaborations with Max Kuiper, Gildas Brugaro and Mihkel Kleis.
* see nr. 10 of the visual part of Nuits et Noirs 2

The contributors of the soundproject of Nuits et Noirs magazine nr 2 – “Sound of the Night \ Sound of Black” – are invited to rework the 29 soundminutes to a new composition of 20 minutes maximum.
It will be posted here on Mixcloud as monthly episodes.